don't I live in a free country?! - Page 2

[LindsayK]

Originally Posted by greersc

As far as your child's records being reviewed, this was a review of the doctor's practice, not your child's health and has nothing to do with you being at risk of losing your insurance coverage. When a doctor signs up to be paid by the insurance company, he agrees to submit to these inspections.

In a similar vein, they will check to make sure that a certain percentage of referrals the doctors write are "preferred network" rather than out of network. I caught he** from DD pedi over this last year. DD had wheezing which pedi kept insisting was ENT related. So (logically, I thought) I requested a referral. I did my research, and figured out which doctor would be covered by my in-network insruance, and was supposed to be the best for little people, and requested a referral. The office secretary (who sent her son to this ENT years ago and loved him) signed off on the referral, and off we went.

Turns out that even though this ENT was less than 5 miles from our house, he wasn't in the "preferred network" or whatever. The next appt, the pedi brought this up and was very unhappy that we went to this specialist, and when pressed admitted that their insurance frowns upon too many referrals to these non-preferred specialists.

I took from this that there are probably many things for which doctors are supposed to have quotas for, and meet percentages. I am quite sure that insurance companies keep an eye on pedis to see what percentage of their patients are vaccinated. Remember, a vaccination is cheap for insurance companies compared to multiple dr's visits over the years for normal childhood diseases!

[Deborah]

Remember, a vaccination is cheap for insurance companies compared to multiple dr's visits over the years for normal childhood diseases!

Right. Except that doctors will tell parents with childhood diseases to stay home and not come into the office to spread the sickness. This only, apparently, applies to vaccine related stuff, as there seems to be an amazing range of other illnesses spread at doctor visits.

Speaking as someone who actually had mumps, measles, chickenpox and rubella (I'm sure I also had polio, non-symptomatic) and many more...my mother NEVER took us to the doctor for anything unless it went on for weeks or months. She treated all illnesses by putting us to bed, giving us peppermint tea and a very light diet and waiting it out.

[Dolphin]

Subbing to this because I'm feeling quite drop-jawed myself these days...